"Are you ready?" Brick asked.
"Yes, I'm ready."
"No low-light vision?"
"Normal vision only."
"Enter!" he said, and the door in front of me slid aside. I stepped into the darkness beyond. The door closed behind me, leaving me blind for a moment.
Light swelled from every corner, revealing a space the size of a high school gymnasium. The ceiling was far above, at least fifty feet above me. Folded up in the corners and along the walls were larger versions of what I recognized as the robotic arms used by the Manufactors on the station. They towered above me. That wasn't what took my breath away, however. It was the ship.
Sitting on several extruded pedestals in the center of the hangar was a spaceship.
It was long, graceful, and deadly looking. Curving both vertically and horizontally, it must have started as a simple delta-wing design, but Grandpa had altered it. Now it looked more like a bird of prey. Longer than a city bus and twice as high, it was still a bit rough and unfinished looking. The Interface gave me some information.
╠═╦╬╧╪
Redemption
Light Scout, design by Mattias Monde
Unregistered
╠═╦╬╧╪
"This is amazing," I said. "Will it fly, Brick?"
"Mattias's design isn't completed. The build process stopped when the local stores ran out of critical materials. The Redemption is capable of atmospheric flight and it was planned that the vessel would have some stealth capability. It is clear Mattias wanted to be able to use this vessel without Earth's governments detecting him. While the Redemption can achieve orbit, it is unarmed and unshielded. It is also currently capable of much less performance than it would be in its completed form."
"I'm so jealous. That's a light shipyard," Metra interjected.
"Does this base have a gate, Brick?" I asked.
"Yes, it does. It also has enough power generation capacity to operate the gate and the light shipyard. As I said, this is a very capable outpost."
"Then let's just open the gate and bring some materials through from the station to finish this bad boy."
"Not going to work," Metra said. "I'm looking at the design, and the bits that are missing all require exotics and radioactives. I've used just about every scrap of what we had building my ship. Once I retake the satellite stations maybe we'll have some more."
"That is correct," Brick confirmed.
"Damn. Alright, well let's do what we came here for. Have you found the data we need, Brick?"
"Yes. Observation has been continuing since Mattias set it in motion approximately three years ago. I have a wealth of data, and none of it is good."
"Show me.”
Chapter Twenty-Two: Sol Has Got Some Issues
A VIRTUAL MODEL OF the Sol system appeared in front of me, the bright yellow ball of the sun in the center. Most of the planets were so small, relatively speaking, that they needed interface elements to highlight them. Long red arrows pointed to the Earth, Mercury, and Pluto. The other planets weren't labeled. Each planet's orbit was rendered as an ellipse. The solar system as a whole was enclosed by a translucent blue sphere reaching out beyond the orbit of Pluto. It was helpfully labeled as the Connahr field.
"Mattias seeded five hundred micro satellites into Earth orbit. Each is roughly the size of an orange and has a small gravity drive and a passive sensor package. The original purpose of the array was general monitoring of the solar system, but after the Connahr field instability, Mattias tasked it to observe both Mercury and Pluto."
"This is the solar system at the time of the deployment of the array. I will advance time to the first significant event."
The planets began to move, spinning on their axes and orbiting the sun. Earth made a bit over one complete orbit in ten seconds when the model stopped again. The Connahr field contracted, the blue sphere shrinking to around the orbit of Uranus.
"At this point the Connahr field shrunk to this size for nearly an hour."
Time moved again, so little that it was barely noticeable. The Connahr field returned to something very close to its original radius.
"After that hour, the field recovered but not fully. Over the next few days, the radius slowly decayed until it stabilized."
Time advanced again, slower than before, and the Connahr field shrank, leaving Pluto exposed before it stopped.
"Several months passed before changes were observable by the array."
Earth moved rapidly along its orbital track as time advanced. The display zoomed in, Pluto grew larger and rapidly filled the area the solar system had. Now instead of an abstract sphere, it was a real planet. Red and white, covered with craters and texture.
I watched as time sped up again and tiny grey and silver pinpricks visibly expanded across the surface of the planet. Large patches of the greyish-silver stretched out capillaries, or tentacles, to the others. The sheer scale of what I was watching struck me. These patches were the size of countries, and the capillaries hundreds of miles wide.
"This fits the pattern of a Shard bombardment. They are converting Pluto into a Feral planet. Eventually, the Shards will grow their Spikes long enough to launch Ferals that can travel through space. If the Vassago AI is active, it will likely be able to control the Ferals here once it discovers them."
"Wait a minute, I thought Shards were something the AIs used when they were smart? Now they just sort of leak in from subspace or whatever."
"Shards come through the spatial tears the same way lesser Ferals do," Brick said. "During the war, it is believed that Shards were mostly launched by AI bombardment ships, but it wasn't required."
"Alright. So that's bad news. Again, we'll deal with that when we can."
Brick resumed his presentation. The display zoomed back out, showing the entire solar system once again. Another arrow appeared past the orbit of Pluto, pointing to an area of space now outside of the Connahr field. It was labeled "Union trade node."
"Several months after the infestation became visible, this outpost lost connection
